tours

The idea for today’s adventure came from a friend who mentioned the Sports Authority Field at Mile High stadium gives tours to the public. I thought that is something different! Football is America’s favorite sport and there is always so much excitement here in Denver when the Broncos are playing. Having never been able to afford to go to a Broncos game, I figured the next best way to see this 14 year old stadium is through a guided tour. The Sports Authority stadium caters to other sporting events as well, such as the lacrosse team, occasional college football games, and most recently the Guinness International Champions Cup (soccer). I learned all sorts of interesting things about this stadium; some I think a devoted fan may not even know about.

Image courtesy of Sportsauthorityfieldatmilehigh.com

The first one: have you ever noticed the stadium is in the shape of a horseshoe? I didn’t! If you look at this picture, you can also see the older Mile High stadium before they tore it down in 2001. The new stadium allows for more space, but oddly enough there are the same amount of seats (about 76,000). They included more restaurants, bathrooms, and club level suites and they also wanted the seats to be as close to the field as possible.

The tour starts out in the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. There were a lot of interesting things in here, but I didn’t get much time to look around because the tour was starting. The tour started out with a chock-full of information about the history of the stadium. I learned it cost $400 million to build, which $300 million of it was paid for by the metro Denver area taxpayers. You’re welcome, Broncos!